Late To The Party

This isn't usual for me, but I was late to the party.

Being someone who is all about being on time, I was quite late this time. Fortunately for me, all of the snacks or in this case, Topps Series 1 was still waiting for me.

This will be the first time in seven years I won't be ripping open a hobby box and I am okay with that. Both hobby and retail come with one hit and 99% of the time for me it's usually a manufactured or plain swatch relic anyways for both. I am really only losing out on the extra base cards, and I don't chase the set anyways.

One of the main reasons I am late is that my Walmart didn't have any in stock when many others did. They are always late with new releases, so I wasn't surprised when I went to look for some and none was there.

When they finally did show up and made it on the shelves, I had the option of a Hanger Box or a Blaster Box. I went blaster since I wanted the guaranteed hit instead of mostly base cards.

So, here we go!

*takes a sip, begins to rip*

The blaster boxes come with 7 packs of 14 cards each. There is one commemorative patch and each box is roughly $25.

There was a lot of talk early about the design for this year's product and I don't have any issue with it. It reminds me of Sunday Night Football when they announce the players, and their heads pop up with their name. Of course, we can't hear the cards talk to us like the SNF players but maybe someday. Who knows where this hobby is heading.

Here is the card back for this year for those of you who haven't seen it yet.

Along with the regular base there is also subset base of,

Future Stars,

 

Rookies (I didn't pull any of the main guys I still need for my rookie card PC)

MLB Leaders

 

Team Cards

and Celebration Cards. Great photograph on this one.

Overall, there are 330 cards to chase in the base set. This number always feels like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Not too many cards, not too few, it's just right.

In Walmart related Series 1 products you can find Blue Border parallel cards,

I found Aaron Nola as mine and it was oddly the only parallel I found in the whole box. I had expected to pull at least a rainbow foil.

The inserts this year for Topps are a little more jazzed up than usual. I like the improvements made but would fix one spot as you will see below.

Welcome To The Club has 24 cards to collect. It's always fun to see a name like Eric Davis still getting some recognition on cardboard.

1988 Topps set. I am so tired of these throwback sets. There are 100-too-many in this set and these re-used sets need to go!!!!!

Greatest Hits has 25 cards to chase. I really like the design and shine to these.

Speaking of that rainbow shine, Stars Of The MLB fall one-per-retail pack and have 30 cards in the set. 

Home Run Challenge card. I never do these and usually give or trade them away. I would rather get something for nothing.

And in my last pack, well I made it my last pack since you can feel which one the "hit" was in,

Team Logo Commemorative patch of Aaron Judge. This is a better hit than I have had in Series 1 hobby the last seven years. Always feels good to pull a PC card especially when you are drinking coffee doing so.

This will probably be my only rip of Series One this year as I felt satisfied enough with what I got. No need to get into trouble and double dip like George Constanza did as my helping of one round was good. Though I do need to find the other rookie cards for my collection and if any of you have doubles of the key guys, let me know!

Hoping to be on time for the next product release, but if my Walmart continues the way it has been, it will be someone else's fault for me being late to another party.

Coffee Card Blogger Out.